Book #66 of 2024:
Olivetti by Allie Millington
I understand that when the premise of a book includes half of its chapters being narrated by a sentient typewriter, you kind of have to suspend a lot of your disbelief going into the thing. All the more so for the twelve-year-old other narrator and the overall middle-grade atmosphere, I suppose. But I’ve still had a hard time with this debut novel from author Allie Millington, which, yes, posits that typewriters are self-aware and can talk to one another when no one is looking, yet are sworn to a Toy Story-like code of silence around humanity. Our local Olivetti decides to break that rule after the boy’s mother vanishes, however, typing out messages from himself and recreating old personal writings from the missing woman that he hopes will aid the family in their search.
Even setting aside the quirky magic machinery and how nonchalantly everyone in this story seems to accept it, the characters are a dismal bunch. I’m bothered by how the mom treats the rest of them, running away from all her responsibilities and relationships without any conversation or note about why, and I don’t like how the plot keeps her reason and a key related development in the backstory as a big dramatic secret for so long. The others violate her privacy in return, of course, and the narrative totally breezes past the fact that — spoiler alert — she’s literally on the verge of killing herself when they finally piece together enough clues to track her down.
The tone here is all over the place, as you can probably tell from my summary. I can’t help comparing this to Where’d You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple, which spun a similar tale over a decade ago but was clearer that a) the title character was unquestionably in the wrong for her actions, and b) there were nuanced mental health issues at play that sometimes drive irrational behavior. That earlier work was a lot funnier, too — and all without any gimmicky talking office equipment, to boot.
★★☆☆☆
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